


Of twin beats and neon strings

by Muspell



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, but finished in here, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 14:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11807919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muspell/pseuds/Muspell
Summary: Based On a Tumblr ask/PromptI wish you would write a fic where yuri is an underground metal or punk musician by night but a concert cellist (or violinist, not picky) by day, and Otabek is a DJ who mixes both genres together with club beats, and they meet and fall in love.





	Of twin beats and neon strings

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my betas BraveOtabek, ModernArt and Fry, for putting up with my poor translation of spanish idioms.  
> One-shot. This is where it ends.

Yuri ran across dirty alleyways and mud splattered  his combat boots with each step; his bass guitar bounced on his shoulder on the only strap Yuri could keep in its place. He could hear the screaming: the cops were looking for every bolter.

Yuri had been in the underground punk scene for a bit over two years now; it gave him a special type of euphoria he hadn’t felt before. He barely knew the low parts of the city when he started. He was raised to be the best cellist he could be, heir of famous symphonic musicians and therefore bound to the orchestra chair whether he liked it or not. There was a special warmth, a wave of adrenaline that applause couldn’t give him as he ran from tear gas and rubber bullets after the gigs every night. Punk was heavily framed as violent and repressed by the police, after all. Yuri’s tutors would freak if they knew. 

That’s why he crawled, as he had so many times before, up his window and into his bedroom. Yuri hid  the bass in the deep corner of his walk-in closet. He undressed as quickly as he could, burying the filthy clothes deep inside the laundry hamper, and wiped off  his heavy eyeliner. It was far from  perfect, but he figured the pillow would do the rest. He had to get into bed right away; he didn’t want them to hear him. .

Or else he’d never live. Not on the rigid line of an orchestra. Not under his family’s yoke. Yuri needed to be himself. He needed to be free. 

 

* * *

 

Otabek didn’t really know a lot about classical music: he had played piano when he was a child and found it boring. The mixing table and the keyboards came out almost immediately afterwards. It wasn’t the old phrasing of the classics, a romantic languid serenade to people long dead and buried; he was able to find his own voice. Not only that; he could make his own voice out of anyone else’s. He could make it all sound so legitimate to the ears, true feeling instead of writhed poems. He could give it life again. 

That was part of the reason  why he was so shocked when he heard it: the solo piece of a new acquisition to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic orchestra. He’d been in the country long enough to know how attached they can be to their history; they definitely seemed too attached to give new prospects a chance. They needed to have a name, or to sound exactly like the ones before them. There was rarely any life, not like this. The strings sang like they were being plucked out of the musician’s heart, one phrase slow and fearful and the next full of commitment, of violence. Of determination. _ Love me like this or don’t love me at all.  _ Otabek could like this. No, scratch that: _ he could use this. _

Otabek couldn’t help but let his mind wander to the bass and the chorus (and let’s be frank, the mosh dives still with his bass strapped around his shoulder) of a petite blonde in an obscure local punk band. He wasn’t the main singer but he stole the stage with his presence: he was fire dancing on the pit, sheer forcefulness slapping the strings. He was breathtaking. All or nothing. 

He could fit so well with the cello track. 

* * *

* * *

 

Mila insisted. Yuri never went dancing, not to actual clubs, but she could be a real pain in the ass when she wanted something. And she wanted this: the DJ was just so good and so hot that “even your bitchy ass would love it,” she said. And sure, Yuri loved to dance, but in his room. At his friends’ houses. Not in public, in a room full of strangers where people tried to grope him or rub against him. Fuck no. 

But Mila insisted. 

She was the only one who knew about both his sides: the pristine cellist for the Orchestra and Warcry’s demented bass player. She was the one who painted his hair in weird colors more often than not; she did it with cheap dyes or even food coloring. It’d sweat off of his hair and onto his skin, a bizarre green glow suddenly contouring his neck and dripping onto his collarbones. 

She was the one who could make him do pretty much anything if she wanted to. And she wanted this. 

 

The DJ was good, that much Yuri would admit.  If he was attractive  he had no idea; the lights didn’t help, shining against the guy’s back as if he was purposely trying to go unnoticed. Well thought, Yuri reckoned: he would have done the same if there was any way he could. But then again, the whole point of the tattered punk stages and made up clubs in someone’s basement was for Yuri to finally be himself. He wouldn’t hide, not from them. 

Then, the music changed to a familiar tune. A low, almost fragile adaggio he knew by heart: he’d played that one. Fuck, he’d written that one. But not like this. A prog drum beat started, a rapid fire of what anywhere else would be a desperate arpeggio and the loud chorus he’s sang more than once, diving against the crowd. 

_ I don’t give a fuck but if I did, would you give a shit? _

Yuri could have sworn under that despite the alterations the DJ did to it, that was his own voice. Mixed with his own solo. 

Interesting.

Who the fuck was this guy? Had he figured it out?

 

* * *

 

It was intoxicating. Otabek never found a better way to describe it, swinging his hips to the music, safely behind the flickering lights and the too big console. He wasn’t always like this, smiling to himself, letting go to the beats of his own tunes. He was always a quiet kid, too shy to open himself to others; his words would die in his throat more often than not. It was probably better that way, he convinced himself. They wouldn't understand his point anyways. This was a better way to pour his heart out for the world to see. A safer way; those who wouldn't want to know could just ignore the art of it and dance to the beat. That’s what most of the crowd already did, anyways. 

Some could say the anonymity of it, of a nickname and a face never shown, was a shackle that allowed him no real movement. He was bound to the brief portion of shade the lights gave him, to the name and online identity he had made for himself. If he stepped only a bit further, he was lost. But in all honesty, that was just Otabek’s own way to survive ; the dark allowed him to completely be himself  without judgement; the alter ego gave him the chance to speak his mind. He wasn’t a college dropout there, a disappointing son. A failed musician gone haywire. A runaway hiding out of shame. He was his own self, no matter the luggage at his back. He was free.

Just like the little blond thing was, still strapped to his bass, throwing himself at the crowd. 

It was silly, just another punk doing stupid shit for the show, but Otabek couldn’t stop thinking about him- the way he screamed his soul into the mic, they ways his fingers slammed the strings, as if they were trying to split them in half. As if there was no force in the world able to contain the force of nature that was… That was…

Right. He was only Warcry’s bass player, wasn’t he? They hadn’t introduced themselves: they just went out and rocked the place down. Then the sirens started to crawl over the guitar riffs and the crowd knew it was time to go. Otabek, being shorter than most, got pushed out of the place before he could see where the boy had gone. It wasn’t like he was gonna go after him anyways: he ran off to his motorcycle the minute he saw the lights coming out of the front door. The Police always used the front door. They only needed to catch five or six and say they were rioters on the news, after all. The kids taken hardly ever ended up with actual criminal records; that wasn’t really the problem. The problem were always the cops that ran to the back: they weren’t there to stop anyone. They were there for fun, truncheon in hand and a hungry smile on their lips. Otabek shuddered as he remembered the night the one with the long scar under his buzzcut, tracing the curve of his right ear, bolted right for him. “I know you,” he said as he lifted the baton in the air like an orchestra director.  “I’ve seen you around; I know where to find you.” Otabek  reacted the only way he could at that: lunging himself forward and headbutting the guy’s nose, only to kick him in his stomach and run as fast as his legs could allow. He always liked running: he was glad he never stopped. He couldn’t even imagine where he’d be right now if he was slightly slower, a tad less resilient. 

None of that mattered then, anyways; as long as he had his music, he could be free. No matter the awful guilt trips his mother put him during their phone calls, no matter the law’s right arm gripping him in a tight hold. They couldn’t do shit to stop him, not really. Nothing could stop him as long as he had this. This was his haven. And the beat, well.. . That was his magic. His poison. His own blood dripping into people’s ears. 

That’s all he really had to offer as he languidly swung to the music. That was all he was, bare and exposed for them to see.

And they were embracing him. They were dancing. They were happy. 

They were one with the music. One with him.

 

* * *

 

 

Yuri danced, yes; he danced until he couldn’t feel his feet, couldn’t feel the heel on his boots digging into his flesh. He danced and asked for a shot and then another. He ditched more than his fair share of pick up lines, each one nastier than the one before. He looked into the crowd and couldn’t find Mila anywhere; he wasn’t willing to get into the ladies’ restroom to check either. It was best to just text her and hope for the best, sipping a vodka on the rocks quietly while his feet kept on tapping the ground to the beat. 

He finished his drink and started to get sleepy; either Mila would come back in the next ten minutes or he was gonna leave without her. He listened to the guy. He’s good. Done. What now?

What do people do in clubs besides rubbing against each other? 

Yuri was never one for dating; he found most people unnervingly plain. He needed adrenaline in his life, not another moron telling him he was “the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen.” He already knew he was hot as hell; big fucking deal. He was a ton of things but a boy toy wasn’t one of them. 

He got into more than one fight for ditching people after having exchanged two or three sentences with them, convinced they didn’t give two shits about him. Of course they didn’t: they were fans, or complete strangers. Why would they? They wanted the trophy fuck, and he wasn’t about to be it. 

He realized he was practically asleep when a finger tapped him on the shoulder: the bartender stretched out across the bar to wake him up. “Hey, are you feeling alright? I can call someone to walk you out. Get some fresh air-” 

“I’m waiting for someone,” he cut the man short angrily. Just out of habit; the guy did nothing to piss him off but Yuri hated these crowds so much. The shitty venues, despite the riots afterwards, felt like a big family embracing you. This? This felt like a fucking pigpen: everyone crawling and thrashing against each other , trying to get the best part of the leftovers thrown at them. And he was the discarded morsel on the ground. He needed to get out. “You know what?” He called the bartender back to him. “If you see the red haired girl that was with me, could you tell her I’m outside?” 

He waited for the guy’s nod and squeezed himself out of the booming place. It was curious indeed: he’s gone to some of these venues before, but never one quite like this. The whole set hanged on the same thread, the same theme all along the hour long set. Maybe even longer, to be honest; Yuri was a bit too wasted already to notice the time he spent in there. He sat on the curb to watch the cars go by; there was something poetic about it, the street lights under the winter mist and the smog lifting off the pavement as if the soul of the city was drifting off. There was something dirty about it too, and dirty was the best way to describe St Petersburg in Yuri’s eyes. It was all masks, all hiding behind beautiful old buildings and faces: all mold and rot inside. They were all rotten inside, after all. But rust didn’t make his chains any more fragile. He was still a bird in a cage, singing out of fury. A gilded cage or a wooden one didn’t make much of a difference. 

He wished he remembered to bring some water with him; as good as some alone time was for him, the alcohol was starting to make way into his brain. He was feeling mushy, and tired, and…

“Are you alright?” 

He was startled awake by a voice from behind, someone who had sat down by his side on the sidewalk. Well, a good two feet away, more like, but still. Yuri shuddered just in case the guy actually wanted to  _ get close _ . “I’m fine. Piss off.”

He glanced at the stranger through the corner of his eye: leather jacket gingerly thrown over his shoulders, black tank top hugging his frame like a second skin, a messy undercut once held together with gel, now oily and sticking to his forehead. He must have been dancing as well tonight. He must be one of them. 

Still, the guy reached out to give him a half empty water bottle. “Alright, then.” He retracted to his own spot on the sidewalk as soon as Yuri snatched the bottle away. Without saying one more word. 

What the fuck was this guy’s problem?

“You look alright.” Yuri blurted out with a scowl on his face, more the product of having to take too much effort to focus. He feels like swimming in a mist, somehow light as a feather and nailed to the ground, his limbs made of solid rock. He earned an almost silent chuckle for his worries. “What are you laughing at, asshole?” 

“Is that your way of flirting?” the stranger turned to him with a raised brow and a hand carefully brushing a droplet of water off his lips. Yuri felt as if the motion lasted a lifetime, for some reason. Definitely not because he was staring. Or because shifting the focus of his eyes too fast made him feel like the ground under his feet had suddenly vanished. 

Either way, he was definitely awake enough to get that one. “I’m not, you moron!” He snapped at him, turning to the guy and pointing at him with the now empty bottle. “Why the hell would I even look at  _ you _ ? You come out of nowhere, all calm and collected, drinking water and shit, and think you can judge  _ me _ . You have no idea who I am!”

Why Yuri was scolding a complete stranger and hiding half his slurred words while sitting on a dirty sidewalk as cars went by was a complete mystery. What wasn't was the way the stranger tried to hide the sudden flinch, the fresh inch or two he put in between them just in case. The way he ran his fingers across his lips again, squeezing softly before speaking. “I have some idea. But truth be told, I’ve never heard your name.” His voice sounded hesitant and muffled, as if talking to others didn’t come naturally to him. As if talking to Yuri was too terrifying. 

_ Some idea? _ A random guy from a rave looking type of shithole couldn’t have possibly heard about Yuri. Orchestra or otherwise. He didn’t fit with Yuri’s worlds, he didn’t fit with his rage. He was too calm, too  _ settled _ to understand any of it. “You don’t know shit about me, man. You and that horde of raging lunatics back there, you couldn’t.”

“Tzokol, about six weeks ago. Bright purple hair if the lights weren’t playing games on me. Neon green strings.” The guy said without skipping a beat. As if he was reliving the whole night right then; the faintest of smiles twisting the corners of his mouth. “You threw yourself at the crowd and some guy grabbed you by the shirt. You ripped it off completely when you got back into the stage even through the bass strap on your shoulder.” He raised a brow to look at Yuri; there was not one gesture to indicate a challenge but Yuri knew it was there. He could feel the electricity in the air. “Am I too far off?”

“Tch.” Yuri turned to the street, to the  dirt and dust kicked up by a speeding car as it passed by . He remembered that. He remembered every detail of every night, and he’s positive he never saw a guy like that on his shows. The point about the punk scene was to  _ not _ be that silent and cold. The point was to let you anger flow free, to break stuff, to fuck shit up. This guy seemed too much like a Catholic school boy, despite his rugged looks.

Anyone would look like that at three in the morning, right?

“You wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that; you can’t fool me.” Yuri snarled at him. “Just because you just happen to stumble upon a set with Warcry’s shit stuffed into it doesn’t mean you’re suddenly a scholar about the punk scene.” He couldn’t really figure out what was he so pissed about. Because the guy approached him and wouldn’t leave? Because he recognized Yuri? 

Because for some reason Yuri couldn’t stop talking to him, even if it was just to insult him? 

Because he didn’t want to stop?

“And what’s with that fucking set, anyways? How can you put some raw recorded tracks on top of  _ fucking Baroque _ and get away with it? That’s just fucking bizarre. Two completely different worlds. It just doesn’t fit.” 

“See, I think it does.” The stranger interrupted him, turning to meet his gaze. This must be the first time they’ve actually look at each other in the eye; his deep brown stare was drilling into Yuri’s soul, trying to see what he tried so hard to hide behind his rage. “I think it’s all pretty much the same. Different language, same message.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Yuri frowned. He wouldn't be told what  _ his own music _ meant. 

“But it does, to a point. See,” the guy suddenly moved closer and Yuri flinched unconsciously when their knees touched. It was a stupid thing that happened to him everyday on every bus. Why did he fucking flinch? “The cello tune, it starts slowly, but builds up pretty fast. Warcry’s, well… It pretty much starts from there, but falls soft on the bridge.” The stranger explained matter-of-factly, as if he actually knew what he was saying. “Tempo is easy to fix: you can fit a 4/4 song into pretty much anything. It’s a basic compass. No offense.” 

“None taken.” Yuri shook his head quickly. Warcry’s style was supposed to be easy after all. It was quick and honest and in-your-face, not academic. That was the whole point of it. 

“They’re two completely different worlds, yes, but there’s a thread in between them. The same personality joining them together.” The guy ran a hand through his hair, flicking it out of his eyes. He was looking for the right words: Yuri could hear the doubt in his voice. He knew what to say, that much was certain; he didn’t know how. “There’s a profound melancholy in the bridge, as if something was missing. It’s not just anger at the world, or spite, it’s so much more. Like- If they had taken something from you and you want it back, or as if you never really had it, maybe? But there’s this sorrow… The hole that thing left.” He lifted his gaze to Yuri’s but the blond couldn’t say a thing, too mesmerized by his words. He only nodded to make him continue. “The classical-  _ Baroque _ , my bad, piece isn’t that different, it just comes from a different place. You wake up from the absence and mourn it. Rage against it. Fight back. And that’s punk in its essence, isn’t it? Fighting back.”

Well, fuck him, that did make sense. In fact, it made much more sense that Viktor’s ‘let your heart flow in the music’ or Lilia’s all-form-and-no-soul style.  Music was all about the message, after all, wasn’t it? Besides the heritage, the orchestra chair, the hours and hours devoted to practice; form was good, but if there was no message within there was no real art. It was just a handbook exercise. And Yuri was never good at keeping things in: his drive is all he had to survive. 

But he couldn’t do what he wanted with that solo. Lilia took it and butchered it and melted it into a much nicer version; no sharp edges, no theme changes. Just one line, beautiful and delicate enough for her standards, and the rest didn’t matter. 

“Yeah, whatever. That solo was shit. An empty carcass. A mutilated fucking corpse. All for a shit chair no one really wants anyways.” Yuri huffed; he heard a chuckle besides him. That was it: he was ready to slap the smartass as soon as he had the chance. Even though he was never good at fighting and the stranger, although short, looked buff enough to dispose of him in two seconds flat. Which wasn’t saying much, really. “ _ What?” _

“How can you even know that?”

“Because I wrote that shit!” Yuri snapped, widening his eyes at the realization. He spoke too much. Fuck. There was no going back now. “I wrote it and saw how it got massacred. You have no idea what it really sounds like! How it all does! Nothing is that harmonic, life isn’t a beautiful perfect little thing; life is a bloodied mess. It’s not ‘ever-flowing,’ fuck that! Life is fucking nasty and that piece  is a lie!” He threw the bottle right across the street and earned some hateful honking from the passing cars. 

He didn’t need to justify himself to a total stranger. He didn’t need to  _ confess _ to him. He’s fine with his double life; that’s just how it should stay. There’s no link in between his identities, no mystic bridge in the middle. He was an orchestra player. He was a punk. They both cancelled each other out.  

He was a damn fake. 

“It doesn’t matter. If there’s one thing I learnt through the years is that it’s not the song, it’s the player.” The stranger replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You didn’t even wonder why it was  _ your _ lines and not the lead singer’s on the mix? Everything you touched transformed into your colours. That’s how powerful your presence is. You transform the world around you.” He clicked his tongue and smiled to himself, looking down to the dirty pavement. “You’re a musician, a real one. That’s what you do, and you do it greatly. You should take pride in that.”

“I-” Yuri couldn’t find his voice. Why was the guy even being so nice to him? He did nothing but bitch at him all night. Was he just another fanboy? 

“I’ve remixed hundreds of these things. I’ve mixed classical music- _ orchestral _ music, my bad, for years. Yours I barely touched. There’s nothing… stuffy about it. Scholarly. Boxed and labeled. It’s honest, even though it hides in between beautiful forms; it’s real. You’re real. Your cello is just as true to you as your bass is. I-” the stranger stopped only to turn back to him, but he didn’t dare lift his gaze from his hands, fidgeting on his lap. “There’s something magical about you. Something fierce. It lights the world up in flames.” 

Yuri just scoffed. That was a lot of poetic bullshit for ‘I wanna fuck you and forget about you in the morning’, but he could see right through it. No matter how deep the words were carving into him. He could see they guy’s intentions  It was always the same. “How can you even say that? You know shit about it.  _ About me. _ ”

“Because I did that shit setlist you danced all night to.” At this Yuri couldn’t help but blush. He wasn’t that obvious, the club was full. How could he even notice? “I’ve listened compulsively to what turned out to be your cello solo for the past month and a half to make that set. Because-” the guy got up, wobbling slightly on his feet (was he drunk all along? How could he sound so cool then?). He offered his hand to Yuri. “Because I’ve been thinking about you more than I care to admit and I don’t even know your name. So do you  _ really  _ mind if I take you for a drink?” He brushed his hair back again and Yuri could clearly see the dark circles under his eyes now. It somehow made his gaze stronger, intoxicating. He had to blink rapidly to stop staring. “A coffee, I mean. I’d like to remember this night.”

Yuri couldn’t help himself. Bullshit or not, he needed to prove himself. He needed to know if the guy was serious- if he was right. If Yuri was actually one and only, just stretching a bit further than most. “Yuri,” he said as he took the offered hand. “Yuri Plisetsky.” 

“Otabek Altin,” the guy took a bow with a smirk on his lips. “Nice to meet you, first cello of the Saint Petersburg Symphonic Orchestra.” Yuri only got to raise a brow suspiciously at him before the guy laughed at him. “I know my musicians, Yuri. I just don’t care much about researching how they actually look. If I knew you were gonna be this beautiful I should have.”

Yuri slapped his arm playfully while pouting at him. What a fucking dork. 

An interesting one, after all. He should text Mila he wasn’t coming home tonight. 


End file.
